Progressive Rock Band Foolsbane Plays Music Their Way

Tools

By
Jay Michaels

Story Created:
Feb 6, 2013 at 2:33 PM MST

Story Updated:
Oct 23, 2013 at 4:27 AM MST

Jerome, Idaho ( KMVT-TV / KTWT-TV ) Ever since Elvis and the Beatles came out, kids of all ages have wanted to be in rock and roll bands. And out of the millions of kids who want to play guitar, some of them actually grow up to do it.

In May, the local progressive rock band Foolsbane celebrates its tenth birthday. Tracey Emery and Jason Ramsey were teenagers at Filer High School when they first connected, and have been playing music together for over half of their lives.

Tracey Emery, lead guitarist for Foolsbane, says, "Over those years, I got better as a guitarist, and so the conceptual, more stylistic nature of Foolsbane's music became easier to play and write. And 4/4 just got boring."

Jason Ramsey, rhythm guitarist for Foolsbane, says, "The chemistry that we have together just as two guitar players, it's almost telepathic, it almost gets spooky. He'll start to play something, and without me even thinking about it, I can start to play something that just matches with it, and vice-versa. I'll have a riff, and he'll just have something that automatically goes with it."

Ramsey says on all of the band's albums, every single band member gets credit for writing songs. That's because everybody in the band contributes to composing and arranging the songs.

Shane Hall, Foolsbane drummer, says, "I just put my layer in there somewhere. If it's complicated, we just do a complicated time signature, and just get it over with. Then everything else becomes muscle memory at that point."

Singer David Chambers says the other band members, including six string bassist Chris Wiersma, translate their emotions into the music they write. Chambers listens for the feelings in the music, and then lets the words come out. He says that determines the outcome of the lyrics.

Chambers says, "The ability to distract from life and use that as a release, a way to express myself and continue moving forward with everything else within the band and within life has been a very useful piece of my life. I'm grateful to have these guys to play with."

Right now Foolsbane is in the studio recording their third album. You can track them down on Facebook and at foolsbane.com .